Béni

At the counter with the plate in hand

At the open counter, Chef Kenji Yamanaka plates Béni in Orchard, Singapore, as a French pass shaped by Japanese restraint. His line runs through Georges Blanc Parc & Spa and L'Osier Tokyo, two rooms where the grammar of sauce, timing, and repetition leaves little room for drift. At Béni, that training becomes a way of making Japanese culture legible inside a French frame, not by explaining it, but by letting the plate carry the translation.

Yamanaka was brought to Singapore after working as Executive Chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Tokyo, a move that placed his Franco-Japanese method inside an international dining room on Orchard Road. Béni opened in 2015 at Mandarin Gallery and earned one Michelin star in the Singapore Guide of 2016, held by this house. The restaurant later moved within the same complex, keeping the counter as the focal point. The distance is small; the discipline is not. Chefs work in view, and the guest watches the last decisions happen bench-side: a sauce placed with economy, a vegetable set for temperature as much as colour, a course passed while it still has its intended pace.

French structure, Japanese season

The menu works as a tasting progression rather than à la carte, which suits Yamanaka's method. French technique supplies the frame; Japanese ingredients and seasonality bring the pulse. The kitchen sources from Japan and Europe, and the dishes named around the house make that route plain: Ozaki A5 Wagyu, Hokkaido scallops, Suruga Bay red snapper, Buri Daikon, mushroom quartet, foie gras bao. These are not accents laid on top of a cuisine. They are the materials through which the cuisine speaks.

The cooking often turns on controlled contrasts. Hokkaido scallops may meet vegetable foams, keeping sweetness, temperature, and texture in close register. Suruga Bay red snapper draws the calendar onto the plate through seasonal Japanese vegetables. Baba cake takes a French form and changes its aromatic field with Japanese Hibiki whiskey and yuzu ice cream. Elsewhere, the kitchen has worked with applewood-smoked Norwegian salmon, kinmedai from Kanagawa, blue lobster from Brittany, imperial prawn, and black truffle. The method asks for the long way: stock, sauce, cut, rest, finish, then the last gesture under the guest's eye.

A quiet room around the pass

The room keeps its attention on the counter. White tablecloths, soft light, and a rustic European warmth hold the space in a lower register, so the movement at the pass can stay readable. It is formal service, but the scale keeps it close; the dining room feels arranged around the hands rather than around ceremony. Plates arrive from a kitchen the guest can see, and the exchange is direct enough that the craft does not disappear behind the room.

Wine and sake sit beside the menu with the same cross-current as the cooking. The beverage program does not need to announce the point. French technique, Japanese produce, European ingredients, and Orchard Road all meet in a narrow room at Mandarin Gallery, where the counter makes the sequence visible course by course. Yamanaka still sends Suruga Bay red snapper out from Béni.